Who are these people? I am not referring to the pathetic parents of “Balloon Boy,” whose fake drama I have been unable to escape while on the treadmill this week, thanks to my gym’s insistence on tuning its flat-screen TVs to Wolf Blitzer’s nonstop self-parody.

The Colorado incident was significant only in the tawdriness of those who perpetrated the made-for-TV scam and their allies in the mindless media who covered this sham “reality” so relentlessly. But even so, it was enough to push aside most consideration of the true hoax reported last week with far less fervor: the obscene rewards that Wall Street bankers bestowed upon themselves for ripping off our economy.

The people I want to know more about are the superrich who expect to be rewarded for their failures, like the folks at Goldman Sachs who will receive $16.71 billion in bonuses—an average of $530,000 per employee—this year after their company did as much as any to bring the world economy to the brink of disaster.

“The Guys from Government Sachs” is what The New York Times once called them in recognition of their chokehold on the federal government. Their power is marked by the two treasury secretaries who led the fight to legally enable and then reward Wall Street for its obscene excesses. Why wasn’t there a CNN stakeout at the homes of former Goldman-execs-turned-treasury-chiefs Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson aimed at finding out how they feel about the almost $7 billion profit that Goldman Sachs made in the last two quarters in the wake of the government’s bailout of the firm?

They were both deeply involved last fall, along with Rubin protégé and current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, then head of the New York Fed, in saving Goldman as archrival Lehman Brothers was forced to go belly up. As opposed to Lehman, Goldman was allowed to change its status and become a commercial bank qualifying for Federal Reserve and TARP funding. Goldman received $10 billion in immediate bailout funds, and we are supposed to be grateful that the company has paid it back in return for an end to any pretense of government control over its executive compensation. The additional cool $12.9 billion that Goldman received from the government as a pass-through from the bailout of AIG to cover Goldman’s toxic paper is money the investment bank has no intention of ever paying back.

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The rationale for saving Goldman and the other too-big-to-fail usurers was that the rescue would increase lending to businesses and consumers and thus revive the economy. But Goldman made money last quarter by shunning such loans and instead putting the government-guaranteed low-interest money it now can borrow toward acquisitions and bond and stock trading. As The New York Times reported: “Titans like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase are making fortunes in hot areas like trading stocks and bonds, rather than the ho-hum business of lending people money.”

Under the headline “Bailout Helps Fuel a New Era of Wall Street Wealth,” Times reporter Graham Bowley detailed many of the enabling favors that the government, under two presidents, extended to Goldman, like clearing the way for the company to issue bonds guaranteed by the FDIC. “It may come as a surprise that one of the most powerful forces driving the resurgence on Wall Street,” the Times reported, “is not the banks but Washington. Many of the steps that policy makers took last year to stabilize the financial system—reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institution debts—helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth.”

It should not come as a surprise to Timothy Geithner, who, as The Wall Street Journal reported last week, talks to the honchos of Goldman more often than to members of Congress ostensibly in charge of banking legislation. Nor will it shock the lobbyists for Wall Street—augmented, as The Nation reported last week, by the pro-Goldman efforts of former Democratic congressman and faux populist Dick Gephardt—that the rich will emerge richer from this deep recession in which so many Americans have lost everything. The die is cast: People working in finance grabbed two-thirds of the growth in GDP over the last decade, with the rest of us scrambling for the other third.

Nor will the situation change anytime soon. The House Financial Services Committee is in charge of writing new rules to protect consumers, but as the respected Sunlight Foundation reports, 27 of the 71 members of that committee receive at least one-fourth of their campaign funds from the financial industry, with the rest of the committee members not far behind.

Now if we could get one of the banking lobbyists to float a duct-taped flying saucer balloon, Wolf Blitzer might cover the real hoax.

To Shenonymous, Absolutely in all social systems it the human factor waths the weakest point.

But still I think the working class in Europe is bether of as the American workers, they hat to fight for it but they did get it, the most in a social balance living people you will find in the small countrys, where the people allways where more to gether because of the sea, sailors, fisherman, and wath also brought them closer the brutal force of the nature and specialy the sea.

In later times we have got also usurious trading people but most make yokes about it we are to plain and soberly to geth imprest by money alloon, we no you can not take it with you in your grave.

Its some other thing if they start for powerbuilding thats not acceptable, but in this teidgeist thinking people geth more bolt and onpleasent in their social behavior, its a shame for them and the others.

Thank you johannes for your comments to me. I appreciate them and the
insight into how some social programs are benefitting some of the people in
Europe. It would not hurt for Americans to hear about this more often. Does
Europe have any rich people? That is, a wealthy class? Does Europe have any
corporate structure that is controlled by socialist governments? By Europe, of
course I mean the individual countries that are the particulars of Europe.

If a new power-seizing movement by socialists or some other New World
Order Front gained any momentum, just what kind of intervention problems
that the Russians experienced would the US not have because of the protection
of the two oceans, Folktruther? Seems like National Bolshevism lasted for a
time, was self-undermined because of its weak ability to actually provide a
good life for most of its people and developed its own corrupt elite class.
Seems to be a natural pattern of mankind to fall into that kind of debasement
because of personal greed. It is inescapable, in the words of Sartre, There is
“No Exit.” Ideology serves well to start a movement, but it is prostituted on
behalf of the impulse to exploit it and no genuine care of the common
population ever takes hold.

I think Leefeller characterized it right as a sort of neo-opportunism (my
neologism).

All our social achievements are coming from the left social thinkers and do’ers, in Europe we had lots of good socialist people we have given the workers very nice and long lasting adventages to live, France 1 month of Hollyday, The Dutch all old people an decent pension, easy payeble assurance for health, and so on and on, and this still spreading in Europe, some stupid people on the right think only in money no that don’t work for the less brainy, and we are to gether a society, thats where we in Europe win, but to hold it thats some other thing.

Some folks I know wear a bucket for a hat! It dost not have to be religious, Republicans could wear an elephant dung hat shaped like a dildo and democrats could wear a hat with big ears or maybe even a pin the tail on the donkey hat!

OMG as the kids say, Sepharad mentions Pascal’s Wager, havent thought of that early example of probability theory in decades…..

What if “we” boycott using credit cards for a day! Everyone! What
do you think would happen? The credit card companies would croak!

This strategy was actually discussed, and at great length, by our little group, we took the trouble to ask some sympathetic folks connected to the credit industry what would be the possible outcome in fact. We were told that boycotts, whether of stores or financial companies, were ineffective simply because they know full well that we cannot possibly live without purchasing or running up debt. What we don’t spend today we will certainly spend tomorrow.

Sad commentary but I think it true. Though you and I and some others may be at a stage in our lives when we can resolve to simply not charge ( my fifteen grand kids make that doubly ( fifteenly?) difficult most are not.

Reich’s youtube quick bit video encourages the public do something: write, call,
email public officials. That does not work! You know what, the public that
reads anything on the Internet is not the general public which is who it will take
for a movement to happen. Who are the voices who the common population
thinks speaks for them? If socialist capitalism is the way to go, America is
already on its way to socialist capitalism with Medicare and Social Security. I
personally want to know more about such a program as being encouraged by
MarthaA. As it is, her and ThomasG’s project is too amorphous, too inchoate,
too ambiguous. It gets too much into accusations. It is too wrapped up in its
narrow form of expression. It does not resonate. For instance, they have been
posting on TD for months now, and how many have joined their ranks, at least
in print on Truthdig? What exactly is being proposed? All I ever read in their
posts is that the RWECRs is the evil demon. Maybe they are, but not all
Republicans are RWECRS nor evil demons.

And not all liberals or Leftists are morally pristine, more like none. Nor do they
have the most rational thinkers. They are just as reactive as the RWECRs. And I
haven’t seen a socialist make much of a headway in the public domain either.
Name one who has made even a slight dent in politics. So a more sharply
defined program for change is required. Also names of potential dynamic
leaders need to be provided. I sure don’t see anyone anywhere who could get
a movement started and sustained.

A Secular Hat is one that would indicate skepticism. What could that look like?
Maybe one that have the words No Way on it. Agnostics would wear a hat
made of hedges on their head. They want to hedge their bets, as in Pascal’s
Wager.

The fact is that we don’t like it. The fact is that corporations do act responsibly,
to their own cause which is their pocketbook. They do not have a responsibility
to the public. The public wants and buys their products. That is the extent of
the corporations’ responsibility, to provide the public their products. I think
Anarcissie says it right. But there is no solution. The public is as greedy as the
corporations and that is a fact that is always overlooked. It doesn’t play well at
the local theater to show the local yokels how greedy they, ‘we’ are too.

So Folktruther, are you starting the movement? It is easy to sit in a computer
chair and issue dogmatizatons. Start the movement, why don’t you? Get it
going, guy! Or are you waiting for others to do it? Yup.

Yes, Sol, it is time to replace “them.” But who are you going to replace them
with? The same kind of “thems” will show up! Do you think there are ‘special’
people out there that will do anything for the public? They all think they are
doing it for the public’s good, but they really do it for themselves.

lexicron, I believe you, and I will find that Frontline PBS special, but pray tell me
are you yourself demanding Congress institute real regulation? What exactly
are you[/y] doing? Who are the we you are talking about? Are you part of
the we?

The problem is that “we” do have power, but it is amorphous. It is not collected
into any forceful whole. Folktruther is right, there needs to be a movement, but
there also needs to be those who actually get the movement started. Merely
making an observation is merely spouting steam. Anyone see any movement(s)
going on?

christian96 is on to something, and while I think he is right on a lot, I think he
is wrong in a few things. The American ship is only appearing to be sinking.
The ruling class does live elsewhere, Acapulco, the French and Italian Rivieras,
posh English gated communities. The general public isn’t going to move. They
are rather inert flotsam and jetsam. What is the point? There is the same crap
everywhere. And by the way YOU DON"T HAVE TO WATCH GLEN BECK AT ANY
TIME! Turn the fn’ tv off if that is the only channel you get, or go out and buy a
Monty Python DVD. Mannn, and you have degrees in ejumacashun?

johannes, better that we help ourselves than expect some human concocted
deity to do it. See how many have died holding their breath for that one to do
anything or anything to happen because there is anything to do make it
happen.

D.R.Zing has written a better column than Mr. Sheer. Now with your clear
thinking, please tell us how to fix it all. Really fix it. Not just talk about
movements.

Yup, ardee, I have cancelled my credit cards too. I’m down to one for
emergencies only. And I don’t expect to ever use it as I am now keeping a
stash in the credit union for emergencies, it is called savings that earns a tad
of interest. It is a first positive step! You are absolutely right! It will make a
difference. What if “we” boycott using credit cards for a day! Everyone! What
do you think would happen? The credit card companies would croak!

There never is any certainty about anything really, except being certain how
you feel about things. Then you can also be mistaken as is sometimes
discovered, then you change how you feel.

Folktruther—-Having only listened to the radio
I have no idea what Ralph Kiner was like personally.
I know he could hit a baseball. Hit more than 50
homeruns a year on several occasions. Rosy Rosewell
announced the away games by reading what was happening on a ticker-tape. When a homerun was hit,
he had a whistle he would blow and say “Open the
window Aunt Minnie.” KDKA Pittsburgh was the first
TV program I got to see. My uncle Gene went to
Chicago after getting out of WWII and learned to be
a TV repairman. I remember uncle gene, dad, and
myself climbing a mountain in West Virginia to place
an antenna on top of the mountain and then running
two copper wires down the mountain to our house.
Every so many feet we would place spacers between
the wires because if they got tangled the TV would
go off. When the wind blew the wires still got
tangled. I had to climb the mountain to locate where
the wires were tangled and straighten them out. The
first TV program I saw was titled “Kookla, Fran, and
Ollie.” It came from KDKA in Pittsburgh.

And I thought I was the only one to see the humor in the hat thing? Humor can open doors never before opened. Silly things need to be called on, and being able to laugh at oneself seems most important of all.

johannes, in the back of my mind I was seeing the popes hat, but I do not remember seeing hats on the Easter Island carvings? Then of course, there is the Dr Dr. Seuss “Cat in a Hat”.

You know the PAASEILANDEN ( Easter islands ) their the big sculptures have very big hats, nothing to make pleasure about, some body with an big hat is much more as somebody without, look to the Katholic priest big bigger and biggest, people whitout land had to stay on the site of the road with their hats in their hand when the landowners came out of church, we had an nice saying ” with the hat in your hand you came trough whole the land-country “.

Leefeller, not to worry. I didn’t find your comments offensive. Actually was trying to figure out the right shape for a secular agnostic’s hat and decided that the only truly representative one would be a big question mark. Go around asking questions enough and it’s possible to learn something you didn’t know. Metaphysically speaking, my only certainty is that I’m not certain about anything. Wish I could be a true believer, but didn’t inherit that gene.

The big A is for Arrogance, the small a is for
a__holes. The question mark is for those who don’t know the difference. The lightbulb hats are for Arrogant a__holes who refuse to believe they could possibly ever be wrong about something.

Maybe agnostic people and atheist’s should wear hats too! How about hats shaped like a big “A” for atheists or a small “a” agnostics? No agnostics should have hats shaped like question marks “?”. Not sure about a Secular hat? The Small “a” could then stand for amusement? Then who would wear hats shaped like shining light bulbs?

Christian, I’m glad you told that story about Ralph Kiner. My dad took me to Forbes field to watch the Pirates when I was little, and Kiner always seemed an arrogant oaf who couldn’t run a lick in left field. Also the KDKA announcers, Rosy Rosewell and Bob Prince, always played him up even though the Pirates always had losing teams in those days. but he couldn’t have been all bad if he cheered up your boyhood friend.

Leefeller, you’re right. It’s so subtle that it’s nearly non-existent except in denoting the kind of belief the wearer’s family subscribes too. I’m mostly secular, with a touch of agnostic, so all the dress codes displayed are purely informational and as such sometimes useful.

Lead article in today’s NYTimes puts a point on Mr. Scheer’s article. Maurice Greenberg, architect of A.I.G., is now busily constructing a new, similarly convoluted version of A.I.G. that is completely exempt from any of the taxpayer restitution claims—and A.I.G. is complaining that the restrictions on their bonuses et al are making them non-competitive with Greenberg’s A.I.G. II, and making noises as if the government (you and me, taxpayers, in other words) should somehow make A.I.G. I more competitive.

Such chutzpah is unbelievable and offensive. The government should not let a former A.I.G. player like Greenberg recreate the same sort of structure that makes regulation difficult and repeats the same risky policies that brought down the first A.I.G.

How hard could it be to simply make a law disallowing all the same structures and risk potentials—and denying architects of a failed system the chance to do the same thing all over again? I realize this would require more government intrusion than would be acceptable to the gilded guilty money men as well as libertarian doctrine, but really, enough is enough. What Mr. Greenberg is doing should be either against the law or so heavily regulated that there would be no point or profit in his proceeding—and no risk that the mistakes that have hurt citizens of this country so badly, so irretrievably, could occur ever again.

Is President Obama sleep-walking? Or does he just not care? Surely he or his staff could persuade those to whom they entrusted restructuring financial policy to be more vigilant—or if not, replace them with the likes of Reich and/or Volker.

You’re probably right—many Moslem women wear head scarves and veils under pressure from their husbands or fathers. But some of them don’t, and it’s hard to control such things. As you mentioned, the dress of many haradim/orthodox Jews is also unnecessary, a hangover from another time and place and seems odd to most outsiders (including me) but is required by their interpretation of their religion. And in Israel, if you attend a traditional Yemeni Jewish wedding, you will see the bride’s hands and fingers hennaed, and her and the party’s dress very similar to the dress of Yemeni Moslems.

It’s very hard to distinguish or separate customs of the mother country from religious or domestic force. In a democracy, however, no citizen should be coerced or threatened into dressing or behaving in a way that they oppose, unless of course they are breaking that democracy’s law. The strictures that women have in their native culture should not by forced on them in a democracy. But the point where private and public meet is always elusive. Look how long it took for domestic violence laws and shelters to destroy the longtime assumption that violence or force used against one’s family members was a private matter, outside the realm of the society’s laws. Even today, some women, children and elders are loathe to report violence or other abuses against them by a family member.

On a lighter note, my husband and I have sometimes observed young Moslem women who technically comply with the requisite ankle-length/hair-covered regimen but completely subvert its supposed purpose (modesty) by wearing attractively styled head coverings, skin-tight tops and skirts and skillfully-applied makeup.

And not all Moslem women feel coerced in their dress. A couple nights ago we were eating dinner in a small neighborhood Turkish restaurant mostly filled with Turkish men and women in modern dress. The young couple at the next table, however, were different. He was in standard Western attire, and she wore top-to-toe modestly draped traditional clothing. They were speaking Farsi, very animated, very cheerful. The wife did most of the talking, her young husband listened and laughed; sometimes they put their foreheads together and whispered. Once, in English, they asked us which salad we were eating and ordered the same. She certainly was not acting like a down-trodden oppressed woman. So the old can’t-tell-a-book-by-its-cover adage applies, and makies line-drawing all the more difficult.

Speaking of a melting pot, I was raised in a small
coal mining community with a population of approx.
2,000. The residents of our community were from
Africa, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, England, Hungary,
Italy, Poland, etc. We were a melting pot because
even though we came from different cultures we
shared common experiences(school, sports, work, etc.). When young I was not aware of our cultural
differences. I can’t recall when I became aware
of our differences. It was probably when I visited
the home of friends and ate with their families.
They didn’t eat what I did at home. Then, there
was the moment in time when I realized some friends
went to the Catholic Church, the blacks went to the
Baptist Church and some friends and I went to the
Methodist Church. I didn’t make a value judgment
about my friends being different. I can remember
just thinking “Well, I guess that’s what their
families like and believe.” I enjoyed eating the
variety of foods when visiting friends. Sometimes
I wasn’t sure what I was eating but it was good.
While in the 5th grade my best friend was a Polish
boy named Anthony. He lived across the street from
me. We loved to run home from school, get our baseball gloves and play “catch.” While in the 5th
grade Anthony got stomach cancer. He lost so much
weight my mother didn’t want me to see him. She
wouldn’t let me go to his house. She wanted me to
remember him the way he always looked. Anthony and
I loved the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team and
their best player, Ralph Kiner, was our hero. Ralph
lead the major leagues in hitting home runs. Anthony
and I would listen together to the Pirates on radio,
KDKA, Pittsburgh. Anthony’s last wish was to see a
Pirate game and to meet Ralph Kiner. A doctor about
8 miles from our home arranged for an ambulance to
take Anthony to a game at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Before the game Anthony met Ralph Kiner
and the rest of the players. Ralph Kiner told Anthony he would try to hit a home run for him.
I was in bed at home listening to the game on the
radio. In the 5th or 6th inning Ralph Kiner hit a
home run. I was jumping up and down on my bed and
crying for happiness. I knew Anthony had seen
Ralph Kiner hit a home run. Anthony got so excited
the doctor thought they should leave the game early.
Anthony died three days later. Years later, while
serving as School Psychologist near Cincinnati, I
learned of a small boy, Ernie, about Anthony’s age
was dying of Cystic Fibrosis. Ernie’s favorite
baseball team was the Cincinnati Reds. His hero
was Johhny Bench. I learned Ernie’s last wish was
to see a Cincinnati game. His mother and father were
divorced. His father was in California. His mother
was living on food stamps. I got her permission to
take Ernie to a game. I told Ernie, “You get one of
your friends and we are going to see a game this
Saturday.” When we were driving to the game Ernie
ask why I was doing this. I said, “Boys, I’m a
Christian. Christians help people.” When we got
to Riverfront Stadium I arranged for the boys to go
to the dugout and meet Johnny Bench and the other
players. They signed baseball for the boys. The
Reds were playing San Diego. The game was tied in
the bottome of the 9th. There were 2 outs and the
Reds had a man on 2nd base. Johnny Bench came to
bat, got a hit and won the game. The crowd went
wild. I thought I was in a movie. Months later,
Ernie died. When I visited the funeral home Ernie
was in the casket in a Reds uniform with a Reds cap
across his chest. I’m a tough guy but I got tears
in my eyes that day. That was the best thing I’ve
ever done in my life.

drbhelthi, wrote two artikels, the first in Ami Deutch, the second in Dutch, this two languages are brother and sister of eats other, but Dutch is the older kind, it comes direct from the old Europeên language spoken in the time of Charles the great( Karel de Grote) with shure a lot of other old Europeen languages, as Englisch has a base from Friesian Sacs and the old Englisch and lots of Norman Frence trowen in.

Thank you, for this beautiful writng, their is one point I differ of opinion.

The Veil or Burka, has no place in an open and modern society, first it is not practical, people need to be indentivicated by their visage, for all sorts of reasons, the woman who are wearing this Burka or Hull as we say, do this because their is an enormes pression on this woman by their Imam, and this is played via their husbands.

Well you find all kinds of maskarades, we in Amsterdam and also in Antwerpen have still lots of real deep beliefing Jews, if you see the Jews, with their shining cherce clotings and black hat with fur brim, and curly hair for their ears, is more commical, but if you like it wy not.

When my father was in Spain, fithing against te Facists, made friendship whit an Spainis Jew, but he wash an Maraan thats to say 6 days a week catholic, and 1 day jew, their are still Maranen but mostley they are become without religion, but no Atheîsts.

Well thank you again, when I wash a young boy I had a Frienship with an girl named Ester, but it had to stop because her father wash against it, but we had allways contact par telefhone, but she is all ready gone, it wash very hard for us.

KDelphi, about 10 years ago oldest son and I had a disagreement (similar to your and Inherit’s) about what multi-culturalism meant. Mine was more melting pot and my son’s was more like a salad—separate and distinctly different ingredients. I think in truth the metaphor should be “casserole”—definitely different ingredients but blended and adjusted to make a single dish.

To me it’s mostly the legal differences that have to be adjusted, and the unreasonableness of expecting one’s new country to be just like the old in all its works and ways. No Shariah, but headscarves and veils OK. Arranged marriages are up to the individuals involved, but people can’t kidnap their brides or force two people to marry if they aren’t willing.

One thing re the ghettos johannes and Inherit were discussing: it would be easy for a visitor to any major American city and assume the ghetto was an involuntary, government-required separation. When I was in school in Chicago, lived with a Japanese family in Japantown and was warned to not wander into the bordering Black Muslim area or the Puerto Rican or Irish areas. With the possible exception of the Black Muslim ghetto (where I did trespass once and, with my boyfriend, watched in rapt silence while the young Malcolm X spoke—as we and a dozen or so other palefaces sat in two rows surrounded by beefy Fruits of Islam guards, which I presumed was for our safety), most of the people in the other ethnically-defined neighborhood were trying to work and save and get out of there. I know that New York’s lower East Side was home to succeding waves of immigrants—Irish, Jewish (especially Hester Street), Puerto Rican—and the children of these immigrants generally moved on after a couple generations at the most. In San Francisco the same is true except that in Chinatown and Japantown, successive generations have stayed—with the exception of Chinese San Franciscans, who spilled over into the Richmond District (once mainly White Russian) and are extending block by block into North Beach, old Italian San Francisco contiguous to China Town. The old Mission District (home of Mission Dolores) once was Irish, then Mexican, then known to some as Nicador, recognizing the Central American migration, and then a dot.commer-fueled gentrification battleground, somewhat arrested by that bubble bursting and the current economic depression. Otherwise the city is a polyglot of different people, intermingled, only separated by economics rather than ethnicity, from the housing projects (lower economic end) to Pacific Heights and Presidio and other pricy areas (usually with the best views).

But then, San Francisco is a relatively small city—only 49 square miles—and it’s hard to find anything affordable to rent or buy there. Like NYC or Boston.

Inherit—Thanks. Losing Laura happens daily, over and over. One way of adjusting has been to talk to her (aloud, if no one else is around) whenever I’m doing something we used to do a lot together—cooking traditional recipes, drinking tea, kvetching about idiot politicians etc. So it’s becoming easier to do stuff we didn’t share—e.g. training young horses—getting easier to focus without feeling guilty. Our family is living this differently, but one commonality: when 100+ people are killed in a suicide bombing in Baghdad, we remember they all had daughters or mothers or sisters or husbands or sons or fathers, and that loss is not any family’s unique experience. (Also makes it harder: reminds us that many of those individuals, like Laura, were not someone the world could spare. We weren’t the only people for whom she was not expendable. Damned irritating to know so many fools and killers live on, and on.)

johannes, I didn’t mean to imply you were off-topic. In fact I was, and am. My main on-topic point would be that Americans should consider demanding that our elected officials listen to Paul Volker’s advice and get as tough as is necessary with the financial institutions that are setting us up for more of the same and possibly worse financial crises. I don’t understand what Obama is waiting for: he has what Americans call the “bully pulpit” of the Presidency, and it is well within his power to put Volker in charge of financial reform, which would be messy but better than continuing to put the welfare of a few financial institutions above the country’s overall financial stability.

Off-topic but important is the interesting perspective your posts reflect: slightly different European ethic groups from the different countries you’ve lived in, the experience your relatives have had, all of which makes for a very complex history. Some of it is shared by Americans whose families came from Europe, but our way of seeing things is a little different because many Americans come from non-European cultures. Also, our country’s recorded history is not as old as yours though the Native Americans displaced a yet older culture when they crossed the land bridge to this part of North America—much as the Inca supplanted a more sophisticated indigenous culture long before they enslaved other Indian tribes in Bolivia, Uraguay and Peru. Europeans were able to displace the Incas largely because of the conqured tribes’ hatred of the Inca, and other related factors, as well as a civil war between Inca ruler Atahualpa and his brother.

European history is far more complicated, layers and layers of successive civilizations for many centuries. E.g., the great mosque of Cordoba was built on the ruins of a Visigothic church that some say also rested on Roman ruins, and in the interior of that mosque are Christian Cathedral elements. Europeans also have a much longer history of involvement in the Middle and Near East. Romans tried but failed to destroy the Jews in Israel, and only succeeded in driving many of them to the diaspora in Europe and elsewhere, though many stayed in Israel and outlived the Roman Empire. Europeans were chasing empires in Arab lands for many centuries, and were joined by farther Easterners as well as the U.S. during the great game that began when the Saudis, who were drilling for water, struck oil instead. (Too bad they didn’t find water but no oil—our history would be much less bloody, our future much happier to contemplate.

You aren’t an anti-Semite, and possibly not even an anti-zionist (there are some zionists like me and my family for whom Israel is the cultural birthplace of our people). I oppose religious-based zionism, just as I oppose fundamentalist Islam, but not all Moslems. Any religion’s extremist fundamentalists are the enemy of civilized people. There are many ways of interpreting the Quran just as there are many interpretations of Hebrew holy books.

Your reactions to immigrants probably are as varied as mine or any other American or, for that matter, Israelis. (Tens of thousands of refugees from Darfur have been accepted recently by Israel.) Immigrants to a country must agree to abide by the social and legal nature of their new country. They needn’t abandon all culinary and celebratory traditions—but they do have to accept the new country’s laws. Shariah is unacceptable in a country where women have the same rights as men. But if women want to wear headscarves or veils, why not?

The difference between economic and old-fashioned ethnic ghettos: people aren’t required to stay in the former; they work hard and move out for more space, better schools, etc. The expression “beyond the Pale” refers to a ghetto area outside Russian cities where Jews were allowed to live. But for a Jew to move out of that ghetto was illegal, unthinkable, literally “beyond the Pale.”

Yes you are right my mistake, but I have seen your Google, Bush-nazi sites, well what are you an Ami or an Sud Africaan, its late now, and I am gething tired, its nice to write (speek) with you, their are so much history’s about the top brass from all over, to make all kinds of ferrytales about every thing and anybody is a kind of time passing, and some people make a good living from it.

I like facts, with a sound proof behind it, hypothetisch is good for an roman or adventurousbook,
but where smoke is their is fire, I think that the people who are govern us don’t like the internet, look at this you theur and I here, say speeking with eats other, its one hour past midnight and I am going
to bed, good night, for you later on.

There is no need for despair. Do not let others confuse you to the point you have no will to live.
Keep an open mind, live one day at a time, don’t give up your faith, whatever it might be, because everyone needs a faith in something.

In the end, this theory or that theory, or possibly some completely different theory will be the truth.
Just have an open enough mind and be flexible enough to recognize True Truth (there’s that absurd statement again) when it smacks you in the head. And do not be afraid to take risks.

That is all I can say. Lets just all work to make life bearable for every other man we can while we still have a breath to do so. It can be as simple as giving him a loaf of bread and a drink of water. Anyone can do that. Capitalist, communist, socialist, Christian, atheist, whatever.

Basic inalienable rights, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is not about politics, it is about love of humanity and faith. We have to be able to defend these principals to the death and squash their opponents whenever they show their ugly head.

Thank you for your warnings, yes but the whole point is lots of people are so confucist that they loose interest in living, and say o.k. it will dure my time, they come in a sort of apathische live circumstance and that precisely wath they want, we have to fight every day in our dayly live, spread the word, of freedom, and a live with out risks is not worth living.

Your German language sounds bizare to me, but as you say its Ami’s o.k. to me we no them as Wederdopers, long forbidden in parts of Europe than wend to Russia afther that the States.
I lookt up your recommandet you tube side, wel yes but its full of this kind of hypothetiche historys.
Do you know the name the States comes from the name of a big house can be a farm or rich koopman, the name is State, you will find them in the old Hudson valley, some together will be named de Staten,or States.
Thank you for your writing in Ami’s Dutch, this comes from Deutch.
Salutation.

elisalouisa and ardee, listening (curtain was drawn, mercifully, so I didn’t have to actually SEE it) to someone else cheering on Fox TV in a hospital is very disconcerting, especially Glenn Beck’s show. Having never been exposed to this, unless you count Sarah Palin’s speeches, it was like having an alternate non-reality—like Alice playing croquet with the Red Queen or attending falling down the rabbit hole. Slightly under influence of drugs, one wonders what country Beck is living in, and if it’s the U.S., what the hell is he smoking?

Yeah! Glen Beck is so funny, I had to stop listening to him because I almost poped my hyena stitches. He must be a barrel of laughs at a monkey convention. Geeze he is even funner than Limpballs or that Ann Colder, I just cant’t get enough of these guys and now we have Palin in the asp coming up the rear!

yeah, that Glenn Beck, what a card! Those who find him “funny” seem pretty “funny” to me…different meanings to that funny word ‘funny’.
There is hysterically funny,there is funny peculiar too….One might hurt himself stretching to apologize for the hatreds that this Beck spews daily.

Anyways, he starts spewing some noise about how he hates Muslims or how much he hates 9/11 families. Yup. He hates 9/11 families. And hey…don’t forget those Hurricane Katrina victims! They are black and poor. You have to hate that!

Look at this gem!
“...this is horrible to say, and I wonder if I’m alone in this—you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims’ families? Took me about a year.”

And this one!
“But the second thought I had when I saw these people and they had to shut down the Astrodome and lock it down, I thought: I didn’t think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims.”

The ignorance doesn’t stop there. He once said to Keith Ellison, the first Muslim ever to be elected to the United States Congressman, that he wanted him to “prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.” Glenn Beck always says ” Now it might just be me…” or ” Nobody else will say this but….” and this is usually followed by some racist, bigotry filled comment or generalization. He honestly believes that he is the voice of America and he’s only saying what people are thinking. Well he is speaking for a few inbred Americans who are burning crosses and wearing white hoods. I hate any television host who talks about the “real America”. Glenn Beck acts as if he is just one of us. Yup…making a seven figure income and sucking off corporate sponsors is exactly what American’s in the heartland do.

DaveZx3—-I have no hatred towards anyone. I love
all people but hate what they do at times. Which
explains my reaction to your first post. I was
responding to an attack. I grew up in West Virginia
where a youngster learns to do a lot of fist fighting. I am 69 and too old for fist fighting
but will respond with words. I am a Christian.
I have been studying the Bible for 32 years. However,
I have problems with the “turn the cheek” principal.
Gleen Beck does attempt some “slap-stick” comedy
at times but personally I never found “slap-stick”
to be funny. I wish the best for you in the future.

prgill: ’... The only problem with “plutonomy” as Anarcissie sees it, is the implicit separation of wealth and power: an absurd idea and hardly an improvement over “plutocracy”. ...’

Plutonomy was not supposed to be a substitute for plutocracy or any other word. The writer was coining a word to describe the peculiar sort of economy we find ourselves involved in, where big money operates under fundamentally different rules than little money. No separation between wealth and power is implied.

Sorry to hear about your mother, sincerely. I am, myself, missing my right lung due to smoking which I actually gave up in 1983. My lung was removed in 2006. If they had not caught it early, I would be dead now. I have no sympathy for tobacco companies, but when I was a kid it was cool to smoke, and we had no clue as to the dangers.

As for my mother, she is no longer capable of discerning political nuance. She just sees Beck jumping around and is amused by him.

As for me, I am well educated with an intelligence level which has served me extremely well in my life. (notwithstanding my ignorance as a kid)

I am not ashamed to say that I find Beck very funny also (ie: stand up comedy). You have to admit, putting a red phone on his set and saying it was a hotline into the white house was funny. And then putting the guy in the Mao suit attending the phone. We get a laugh out of it. It is a Letterman or Leno type stunt, which has to be considered a ratings ploy, no more no less. I can’t take that stuff seriously, and I am not threatened by it.

I am an independent voter, and have no extremist views. I am not threatened by what the lying news networks tell me. I will watch Ed or Maddow or Olberman, Hannity, whatever. We don’t actually watch tv, we just have it on all day long in the den, and if you go in there, you tend to observe a few minutes of whatever is going on. Pretty pathetic and a waste of electricity, but such is life in 2009. No one has sat down for more than ten minutes in this house for years. Probably more nervousness than anything.

I am only spitting all this out because I have been slightly injured by the fact that since I will take in a Beck show at times, I am apparently an idiot for doing so. So you know, it is a personal thing, but I will get over it. I have gotten over a lot worse.

And regarding ignorance, I think I will stick to my guns about that one as you have for your statement. Though I do agree, a rational thinking man would ascribe objectivity to ignorance, in this great age of relativism, we must never forget that, “whats ignorant for you might not be ignorant for me” “whats true for you may not be true for me”

No hard feelings. I am getting to old to remember who I am supposed to be mad at.

DaveZx3—-I will stick to my guns that low IQ people
who watch wrestling, war movies and sex programs
GENERALLY represent the type of viewer who watches
Glenn Beck. Your mother may be an exception to the
rule. I know of no one who finds Glenn Beck to be
funny and entertaining. That may be attributable
to her age. I find it somewhat odd that you would
mention your mother yesterday, Oct. 24th,
since that would have been my mother’s 89th birthday
had she not succumbed to emphysema at age 73 because
of smoking too many Lucky Strike cigarettes. Instead of writing about Glenn Beck perhaps I should
have spent my time writing about the greediness
behind the tobacco industry. By the way, ignorance
is not in the eye of the beholder. “Eye of the
beholder” implies subjectivity. Ignorance is
ignorance regardless of an individuals subjective
opinion.

“we are indoctrinated on a dayly base with information, right, is this information tru or not, if not than the publicer is lying,and has to be punisht”

I have been reading your posts in this thread for a while now, and while I am not exactly sure where you are coming from, (my problem, not yours) I had to respond to the above statement.

Publishers do not get punished for lying. Lying is o.k., even encouraged if it furthers your political agenda or that of your buddies.

Everything is relative now, so your truth might not be the same as my truth. We all get to define our own truth.

True truth (ever think you would hear something as insane as that) is actually avoided at all costs, because it offends many people. You are free to say whatever you like without punishment, but true truth will probably get you in trouble, probably even more than outright lying, which only gets you in trouble if the lie is about someone in power.

Yes, some people have great power, and if you say what they don’t like, even though you have a right to, and even if it is not a lie, they will punish you. But it will be done in secret. You will come out of work and the air will be out of your tires. Or they might have the IRS audit you. Or something like that.

So you see, it is not exactly about truth and lies anymore, it is much more complex than that.

Is it possible that you can explain in this time we are living in, Who is Who, and Wath is Wath, we are indoctrinated on a dayly base with information, right, is this information tru or not, if not than the publicer is lying,and has to be punisht, but it never happen, the whole world is one big lie, and thats how they stay in power and make their money, and let die our children on their playing battle fields.

Our Woman like to show them selfs they are proud of them self and have self-esteem, most not all woman from Moslims are kept like domestic annimals, they are real to feudal to live with us, most of us have wrestled our selfs free from all dogmatic thinking and are become atheîst, with or without an feeling of reserved against religions.

O yes the Danes thats some country apart, my fathers famillie came from the north sea coast of Danemark, it are the isles where the Friesians live, they spoke Friesian, they where sailors and farmers, beautiful old tribes with their own old historys and myths, as you know the small country of Holland ones wash the greatest seapower of the world, the Dutch are all ways put on the side, but they have found more islands and countrys as the rest to gether, our Captain Abel Tasman, did find lots of islands and continents, some as Australia( new holland) New Sealand ( new zeeland) Tasmanie, everything wash put down in a small book, this book wash found in a small bookshop in Leyden bij Captain Cook who made the same voyage, and planted the Englisch flag, well thats precisely wath the different is between the Dutch and the Englisch from that time, the one human and the other imperium building.

Do you know that when the Jews who lived in the Dutch colonys in South America, asked an Peter Stuyvesant if they could come an live in New Amsterdam, he invited them to come, so hats how the Jews came to live in New York.

And we still have some good relations with the Jews, we have seen many Jews coming from Portugal this is the real elite, as Spinosa, lather on the Jews from the East came not the same kind, but they lifted the whole live up in Holland, they where brainy and cunning, and that worked well the Dutch had learned to behave like slyboots in the Europe from that time.

ITW is doing the same as the Moslims do, if you have a discusion with them, its an one way discusion, they don’t even listen to wath you say but its their feodal thoughts that the world has to become Islam, look to Indonesia, their is nothing left of their beautiful old cultures, and they become more mad every day.
Its not nice if in a discusion somebody takes all the time your words and so your thouthgs out of contexte.
About Spain yes this wash the forerunner of the second world war to come, but as we now think maby it wash all in the scènario, and about the first Dutch in NewYork, the church wash their to or let wy say try to hold the people a little bid in line, you now people where not educated at all, and with money and alcohollic drinks it wash quick an pigstable, you can reed that in the papers from Peter Stuyvesant the governer of New Amsterdam.
Some people don’t now that you can love your country and etnique, in Europe and special in the small countrys we had an very cosy and nice way of living to gether a do mean the citizen, socially everything wash on its place, but new ones do not understand this an think its paradis, and theu see our freedom as something bad, and our woman are in moreel they say and are more or less hoers in their eyes, well as I sayd before we will geth big problems with this people in Europe they came to conquer.

Personal tyrades have the same effect as deliberate disinformation, since they distract from the subject matter. That is, unless they are deliberate disinformation disguised as personal tyrades. In either case, chalk up one for the disinformationists.

My mother is a very intelligent, retired medical professional and energetic 86 year old, who goes to the gym daily and pumps weight with the best of them.

She tuned into Glen Beck accidentally a few months ago and found him vey funny and entertaining. She has voted Democratic her whole life, and I believe she brought me up very well, thank you.

She thinks Glen is doing comedy, you know, the right’s version of Bill Maher or something.

She does not watch wrestling, war movies or sex programs.

I was deeply offended by your post stating,

“However, Glenn does appeal to low IQ Americans who like to watch wrestling, war movies, and sex programs”.

I found your statement unprofessional at least, and I responded in a way I am not particularly proud of, but I can rationalize it as defending the honor of my mother.

I am not going to comment on your latest unprofessional barrage, because there is no reason to continue this conversation, however, Ii will leve it with the observation that, “ignorance, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder”

DaveZx3—-AS AN ELITIST PSYCHOLOGIST the fact that
your mother enjoys phony wrestling gives me insight
into you. You know? The apple doesn’t fall far from
the tree! Please do me a personal favor. Take your
ignorant comments and stick them where the sun
doesn’t shine; where your mind is located! Thank
you! You see a Christian doesn’t always act like
a Christian!

The melting pot is a myth and a con game. A melting pot means no culture at all. Multi culturalism is the opposite of a melting pot. People can live together and retain their cultures withut imposing them on anyone else. That is NOT a melting pot, where Merkins flail around , making consumerism their only culture…
***************************************************

Sometimes I wonder what planet you are on. For people to live together they all must make compromises—like the one where you abandon the part of your religion that says everyone else is an evil abomination that must be destroyed. EVERY person I know who lives and works in America who came from somewhere else must make compromises to succeed. You, of course, lump this all into some monstrosity called “consumerism”.

The reason jobs are leaving America and going to India means that Indians are also willing to be part of the modern industrial and technical world—which also implies compromise.

Sonya Sotamayor’s mother came to this country and raised her daughter as an AMERICAN, complete with all the background of being a Latina. Samuel Alito made exactly the same argument about his Italian background.

Many cultures are leader-based, chieftain-based, and do not view or accept freedom of speech as valid. Yet to come here and become Americans they are supposed to espouse acceptance of our Constitution. THAT is where the melting pot begins, not with wanting $200 Nike sneakers and a iPhone.

You deny the immigrant experience that has been a continuous, integral and vital part of the USA since Colonial times, just like Johannes does. His not understanding is comprehensible. Yours is not.

ITW—having respect for Muslim culture is not the same thing as having a religious world view take over your country…anyone in the uS should know that, with all this religiosity blocking science and tolerance.

The melting pot is a myth and a con game. A melting pot means no culture at all. Multi culturalism is the opposite of a melting pot. People can live together and retain their cultures withut imposing them on anyone else. That is NOT a melting pot, where Merkins flail around , making consumerism their only culture…

johannes—Sepharad was replying to other posts. Sorry to hear about further trouble, Sepharad..be easy on yourself.

johannes- I dont agree with your view of Islam, (but I dont know it that well—tried to read Anglo translation of Koran—doesnt make sense to me) but I also dont think that we have to be “tolerant” of radical “christianity” which has been ruling this country ever since it was founded—or any other religion. People have a right to practice any religion they want. But making them all tax exempt, as they are here, just leads to fraud.( and what a mess!)I do understand that Europe is a smaller land mass, and that you just dont have a history of much immigration/peaceful integration. Americans should remember that this country was “founded on immigration” (so we are told everyday, as regards Anglos), and, that you dont have to be racist to see that “globali/colonialization” is ruining ancient cultures in all countries. Canada seems to handle it better than both, the US and EU, being, multi-cultural, rather than the so-called ‘melting pot” or segregation, but I havent been there in so long, dont know. We must, also, I think, consider the uS Imperialist role in driving people from Muslim countries into Europe and the US. I am not sure if Islam, keeping itself ‘separate” in Europe is a fucntion of European racism or Islamic unhappiness with european culture, or, Islamacists simply not wanting to be there, but, unable to advance in their own war-torn countries. Maybe someone here knows better than I do.

When I was in Europe, there were some skinheads—not at the WorkCamp. We had people from , then, Yugoslavia and Czechoslavia and Tunisia…they spoke French and German. We went to a bar in a Navy town of Korsor (cant spell it on this typewriter), Denmark one night, and, some big, skinhead Danes beat the crap out of the Easter n European and Tunisian guys while we were dancing. NOt having seen this before, being from a fairly small town, I was astounded and amazed. The people at the Camp were saddened , but, not so very surprised. They said that “it happens”. The guys were not caught. A few years ago, my Uncle in Denmark wrote to me about coming there, only to say that, unless I was a PhD in “computer programming” (this was years ago) to “not even try”—he said that it was hard to find work or housing, even if you grew up there…he decried the roaming of skinheads more than “immigrants”, but, he was an old atheist Dane and didnt like the religious tone that they brought with them….remember the danish caroonist who was threatened with jihad and 6 civiliznas in the Danish embassy were killed , supposedly due to the cartoons? (it was most probably denmark’s role in US wars)Then, Dubya had the cajones to say that the danish Ambassador should “apologize
“! Its called freedom of speech. I dont have any innate responsibility to respect religious extremism…but its probably stupid not to.

ITW—when did all these people leave the economic ghettos, shut them down and become middle class? I must not have been paying attention…the “ghetto” parts of town in the Midwest are spreading rapidly. I hear that, in parts of LA, mountain lions are taking over again..more than race, gender, religion, etc MONEY and class are everything in the uS. If that is what you think is important, you will probably like it here. If not, you are probably , now, financially stuck.

Johaannes, your dad fought in Spain against Franco. Pretty impressive. If they would have won, maybe Hitler wouldn’t have been so adventerous.

I se how your grammatica evolved. Its a micture of Dutch, English, French, and German. I never did know how the people in those small countries like Belgum and the netherlands could keep all those languages they learn straight. I remember when were were trying to get into communist Czeckolavia, which has German has a second language, of finally inadveertantly going off into Spanish with the border guard. Don’t worry about it, your gramatica is fine.

However your views about Muslims are worrisome. I agree with Inherit for a change in his responses.

Your way of writing is very difficult to reed for me, if your writing is pointed on me, for coming of topic, you have to excuse me,I think its good have to give some background information to the people with whom you discus things.

Further I know my gramatica is not that good, but the pleasure to change thoughts and opinions with an other kind of people, is for my feeling so positief, the American way of thinking is so much different from that of Europe, so my excuses by this.

KDelphi & prgill, thanks. It’s good to be even a little back. Since our daughter’s death, several members of our immediate family + cousins have been in hospital for emergency surgeries, including me, or starting chemo. Is it something in the water? In any case, hasn’t left a lot of time or mental energy. I DID stop not-reading-newspapers when I heard the NYTimes was laying off 8 newspeople. The idea of the good grey NYT struggling made me realize why I valued it, just as someone close’s death gives you a heightened consciousness of life.

Some of the comments on this thread are pretty interesting. Can feel clunky gears of my political mind resuming. Might even start posting!

River Rat, had to LOL at your description of those muttering “fer sure, fer sure, where’s the meth?” The current equivalent seems to be “Whatever..” or “I’m all like…” or even “As IF”. Totally off topic, but if we’re raising an entire population who think and express themselves this way, hoaxes big or small will be the least of our problems.

Wath is the diverence between an normal ghetto, and an economic ghetto, and the stupid and dom people had to stay in the not excisting meltingpot.

we have no relation with north Afric, we are part of eats other, bud some are welcome and some not, most come not to work but to profit from our generous system, and we like it very much if this kind stayed at home.

And all your nice new emigrants, they take the place of nice older emigrants and so on, thats not a meltingpot bud an the oldest with the oldest rights, just trow them over the cliff, I thought that that wath happened with the old Indian tribes was to by regreted.

And we support no Woman in a Burka, the living dead, its a disgrace for the beauty of woman.

The power of this offencieve from the Islam, comes from and is payed by the friends of America the Saudie Arabs, they try to kill our cultures and civilisations with our own money paid for the oil, and the Bushes are well aware of this slowly bud steady invasian, helped by all the stupid wars and killing, the Christian people are not excisting anymore, its the big power house you see in working here.

I work everyday with people from India, China, Columbia, Italy, the former Yugoslavia, West Africa, Philippines and Russia in a small American company—and friendships are formed regardless of background or color. Immigrants STILL flow into the USA in vast numbers, perhaps not as great as between 1880 and 1920, but they are everywhere.

You didn’t understand New York. Period. Ethnic enclaves form so that immigrants have a community of people with the same language and culture while they are assimilating (if they can). What you did NOT see is that those ghettos while nominally ethnic, are far more ECONOMIC ghettos. When people move up the economic ladder into the Middle Class, they move OUT of those very ghettos.

Only France, on the Continent, has understood that while you may welcome immigrants, you must INTEGRATE them. They go too far, demanding that people strip off their culture, but at least they are looking to integrate them. You have been close to North Africa and Western Asia since the dawn of civilization in Europe, yet they are STILL strangers to you.

Well yes Europe is and wash a differend way of live and looking to society.

Afther my High school finisd visited the States, lots of famelie all over, but in Nrw York I have seen that the melting pot washend working, every Etnic or Religion had his own getho, as we had in some big city’s in Europe.

As you speek about new emigrants its now 2009 and you are looking to this fenomène as in 1850, this illegaal emigrants never been seen by a Docter, they do the work from the well esteblist American worker for half the wage, what to do with all the people out of work, and wath to do wen your army comes home.

You first have to be honest with your self, and look to things on the realistic way, belief me we have an very big problem in Europe, its not only the fundamental Islam, most of this people have feudal way of looking to live, and if you don’t belief me come and have a look, will do you some good to see real freedom still excist.

ITW—Yes, and GOP are about 28% of the country, yet , still occupy the entire focus of most Dems thinking..Dems should thank gawd everyday for Palin, Rush, Beck, etc who make Dems look good by conparison.

Employees of the company, and the related misguided, are paid handsomely to “make up shit,” and use it to distract from factual information. Such otherwise intelligent folk, and associates, are also masters at mocking those who spread accuracy and truth. The vast majority of folk who render comments, have access to essentially the misinformation that has been churned out continuously since NAZI sympathizers and NAZIs began to overtake the USofA when “Operation Paper-Clip” was in the planning stage. Regurgitating print about the history of GHWBush, and about A. Hitler, which was contrived by salaried disinformationists, simply suggests affiliation or membership in organisations hired to “puke” disinformation. It would interest me to know the percentage of those who “comment” to Truthdig and similar articles, who are salaried to contrive debauchery. I view such as a vast waste of intelligence and creativity, which could be used to enlighten and improve the world. When info is leaked from the white-house indicating that “they” control the formal news media, the white-house staff can be credited with having released one accurate statement in 2009.

It is between 2 and 3 a.m.. I can’t sleep. So I
turn the idiot tube on. There is Gleen Beck waving
a baseball bat and showing clips from the “untouchables.” He appears to be ranting and
raving because other news agencies refused to
recognize “Fox” as a news agency. As a Psychologist
I use to believe Gleen used his tactics to get
attention and keep him on the air receiving a pay
check. Sort of like Howard Stern. The more I
watch this man I think it is highly probable that
he is not acting to get attention. This man has
mental problems. He is potentially dangerous to
himself and others. I question why Fox would hire
such a man? I could do a much better job heading a
program which discussed really relevant issues to
all Americans with significant knowledgeable
professionals. Any suggestions how I could take
Glenn Beck’s place? However, Glenn does appeal to
low IQ Americans who like to watch wrestling, war
movies, and sex programs. I don’t know if I can
compete with that.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places”.

I just thought I would throw this into the mix. Most will know its source, but I am not going to state it.

It is my opinion that we are all having our strings pulled by these principalities in high places.

These principalities are in the very highest places with extreme power, which we allow them to perpetuate by not rooting them out. They are not elected or even appointed. We probably don’t even know who they really are.

We do know about their lackeys, who they pay very well to do their dirty work. Show me a George Bush, and I will show you a puppet. Show me an Obama and I will show you a puppet. Show me a Goldman Sachs and I will show you a group of puppets.

When a man forfeits his freedom, he forfeits his soul and makes it a commodity to be bought and sold by the highest bidder. By not acting, people forfeit their freedom without a fight.

We, man, do have sufficient power to regain and maintain our freedom, but there is never a consensus among men. We bicker with each other, instead of rooting out the real enemy. We divide up into little groups and blame other little groups for our problems.

There is a problem with man. He has lost his courage to fight for his freedom and now sits in his living room complaining to others that he has no freedom.

By 2040 probably half of America will be Hispanic or Black…..So??????? Big f***in’ deal!

Johannes confuses Islam with the desire of certain fundamentalist Moslems to undo Western and European democracy. It’s not the same thing at all.

Johannes also suffers an affliction that Americans are generally far less prone to than Europeans: Terror of immigrants. Yeah, there are the yahoos who want to form Minutemen militias mainly against Hispanics coming here to work at ANYTHING for peanuts so their families back home don’t starve. But most Americans realize the immigrants have been a constant source of strength and re-vitalization of America.

I’ll bet Bush ‘41 is not only secretly German, he’s actually the bastard son of Hitler and Eva Braun—and Barbara comes from Leni Riefenstahl when she, in a drunken orgy, slept with a really ugly guy.

The Americans constructed a Moslim block in the centre of Europe, the Albanian Kosovo country, no body knows wy but it is there every where new Moskeès, the beautiful old Greek orthodocs churches down in ruins.
We have lots of very brave Moslim people, who come to our kind of living but most are very small minded and more or less hate us, we like our freedom, we have freed ourselfs from all dogmatic thinking, we are happy with that, but this very bad educated and one way educated people are afraid of us, not all but enough, still lots of woman go in the so called Burka wath we see as an oppresion of woman, well they don’t want to integrate they create getho’s, much woman don’t speek the language of the country where they live, and the young people behave very bad, and the newest report about this religeon, is that in 2030, 30% of the citizen in Europe will be Moslim, this comes they use the so called rabbit politic lots of children, the old Europeên citizen are bac to 1 or 2 children,
bud their is place for every one to live and work, but no religios fundamental building, thats un accepteble.

In this history from your given site, some is tru and somethings are absolutely wrong, in our good old Europe their is a very rich history of myths and half storys, an American citizen can never beleef what an how things happen en how strange the whole atmosfeer wash. my father had with an other man a cel, that is a two mens group, with the resistance movement against the Germans, they have rescued many Jews and other people who had to hide, at home we had a Jewes lady with her doughter hiding in a small room even my brother in law, who wash a German navy officer did know we where hiding this woman with her child, to make it short afther the war in Amsterdam one day my friend who was a Jew played soccer and asked me to come and play with him in his club, but to our constarnation I wash not allowed to play in that club while it wash Jews only, when I told my father this history he did not beleef it, lather he wash real an colère, but its tru the name of the club wash Macabè, so this a small famelie history, but in the greather world its the same, thats wy who is who, and what is what, even if I wanted a could not be a racist but, some people I hate and this has nothing to do with coler race or religion, just dirty stinking power seeking humans, o yes they are their all the time

I wend very early to live in France so I am born Dutch and living in France, thinking in the Dutch France English and sometimes German, my mother wash an German classic thinker, literatuur as my father wash an adventurer, did fight in Spain contre Franco, they wend in with 800, and came out with 23, it where the France who killed of the Spainis republic my father allways sayd, while they where afraid that the Basc declaired their own republic, they are still not free now in 2009 in Europe, this pauvre peuple.

Inherit, your nitpicking about DrBhelthi is a major reason why you don’t properly enjoy dingbats. the good Doctor obviously has done some research that is not available to the more pedestrian truther like myself, but it takes all kinds.

And I always like Johananes’ sentence structure, although it doens’t seem to resemble the French I have long since forgotten. His comment about Muslims unfortunately supports your characterization.
Forget about Muslims, Johannes, and hang in there.

Prgill, ‘plutonomy’ works out. ‘Plutoctracy’ is the rule by the rich, the power structure of the US. Plutonomy is the POWER SYSTEM that te power structure rules. the persons of, say, the lobbiests, president and congress being different than the White House system it morphed into.

The mainstream conceptual language is formulated from the perspective of power, so we lack the conceptual vocabulary that has to be supplied by truthers like Anarcissie.

I was skeptical about this article to begin with, and after reading a few paragraphs, I concluded the whole thing is “TRIPE.” Total garbage! When someone declares Hitler was alive at 107, and that George H.W. Bush is an adopted “KRAUT” kid, all credibility flies out the window.

Here’s Bush’s teen-age years:
Bush began his formal education at the Greenwich Country Day School in Greenwich.[3] Beginning in 1936, he attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,[3] where he held a large number of leadership positions including being the president of the senior class and secretary of the student council, president of the community fund-raising group, a member of the editorial board of the school newspaper, and captain of both the varsity baseball and soccer teams.
And furthermore, he had three brothers and a sister fairly close to his age.
What in the world kind of an idiot would write such nonsense?

And motion pictures of Hitler show him to be afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, and it is common knowledge that he was living on drugs. So there is no way in hell he would have lived much beyond 60 years old.

Research skills are not always the key. Having been on the inside, having experienced a few “malpractices” and understanding what really goes down, and why, broadens ones ability to perceive, what to believe and what to reject. The acquisition of age also helps some of us. Goto the following, and let the info sink-in: http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20070405.htm

Last year a German scientist acquaintance told me, “Doc, some German families have always known the true identity of the 41st US president.” Perhaps the family of Johannes is one of them.

Its not clear what you meen about my commentares but first I am not an racist ant not anti Jews, yes anti Zionist.

In the year of 2040 half of the population of Europe will be Moslim, that will say as we not stop them, this is a fact, and the reality, so am I now an racist, no I just want to protect, as they do, protecting my culture and free way of thinking, is not something criminel is it, no, dear Sir be realistic you have to defend our selfs in this world, its eaten or been eaten, I don’t like this saying but lets sa defending to stop that we are been eaten.

Sepharad: It light of Obama’s challenge to Fox news I saw some glimmer of hope. In reality, considering other events, it is of no consequence that he does challenge the news media. I also was encouraged by the fact that he is challenging the bonuses being paid out on some firms that got bail out money. On second thought I want the facts. What is the bottom line as to bonuses and is the money flowing to the CEOs (and back to the politicians) in some other manner. Sorry about your stay in the hospital, especially since your problems were exacerbated by having to watch/hear Fox news, How does one endure such a fate? Hope things are better for you now in all ways.

If THEY set something up its done long long time before they use it, if you reed about Germany before in and afther the WW11, you geth some funy feeling that things are not allways wath yhey like, its like who is who, and what is what, some THEY where bloody rich even to rich with all kinds of international dealing and weeling this wash done, its never stopped it only went to an other place this time the USA, its not something criminal but its not very patriotic either.

Look how some people use their dead, look how they marchandise with the Holocaust, wath hasse happened is discusting and unhuman, but it goos on and on in the world, they know how to use it and put them selfs on the first plan, the whole WW11 is turnrd around the Jews, the other 40 million humas don’t count, thats wath I find discusting.

Some of us are not surprised that “they” are of jewish descent, having known this and additional info for several years. There are various “disciplines” among the folk of israeli descent. For example, the honorable Mae Brussell who uncovered the CIA disinformation program in 1981. Then there was Sherman Skolnick of Chicago, the dishonest judge buster, who discovered the birthplace of one, H.B. Obama, when he was gearing up for the Ohio senate race. Falsifying passports, backgrounds, altering family histories, “removing” historical records from city and county ledgers in the USA, acquiring assistance of WWII NAZI families in Germany to do the same in their homeland, all of which the CIA and “subordinate pimps” do with finesse.

However, the group who you mention are not the altruistic types, but rather the zionists, who consider themselves the inherent leaders of the world. Misusing the fraudulent enterprise, “The Federal Reserve” to destroy the fraudulent banking system of the western world is one of their immediate goals, scheduled to occur just after Christmas 2009. They are also the ones who tried to destroy the USS Liberty, and represent the only nation on the globe to have attacked the USA without retribution. http://www.chicagotribune.com/services/newspaper/
printedition/tuesday/chi-liberty_tuesoct02,0,3737033,
full.story

They are also the string-pullers of the marionnettes who are trying to force an attack on Iran. Iran will use the Euro instead of the US$ in its oil deals. Who does Iran plan to attack? No one. Who have the zionists of israel attacked, and what are the initials of their lobbying machine in D.C., from whom the current “leaders” of the USA begged assistance a few months back???

The only problem with “plutonomy” as Anarcissie sees it, is the implicit separation of wealth and power: an absurd idea and hardly an improvement over “plutocracy”.

A “plutarchy” is a de facto “plutocracy” in which the few rule by virtue of their wealth. Commpare this to an “oligarchy” in which the few rule without regard to wealth. A “plutocracy” is by definition an “oligarchy”, but not all “oligarchies” are “plutarchies”. (Got it?)

What do we accomplish by changing words when the underlying concepts remain unchanged? What we need is a new definition of “wealth”...

Sepharad—Good to hear! Have to ask how youre doing…dont have to say. I join y’all , Anarcissie, FT and yourself in “plutonamy”!Wish I could think straighter..still, very interesting…lemme know when Plutonomats United goes up or something…lol

Anarcissie, “Plutonomy” is precisely the situation in which we find ourselves well and truly stuck. I am so sorry I threw my vote away on Obama. (I still don’t think there was a reasonable alternative candidate, other than Hillary for whom I voted in the primaray, but even so I’m sorry, and will not make the same mistake again.)

ITW and ardee—(I knew this was going to happen—it always will, unless the grow balls!)The main reason (excuse?) for credit card rates going up (or going to adjustable rate) is that the cowardly Dems passed that damn “credit card bill of rights” and refused to 1) put a limit on interest rates(ie the Sanders amendment wouldve capped rates at 15%, which is too high to do retroactively anyway—but better than this!!) 2) refused to make it go into effect until Feb. (so the banks are all rushing to raise your rates now) and 3)excluded “variable” interest rates (ie it only applies to cards with fixed rates.)

They changed mine to variable the day after the “bill” was passed. Ive had the card for almost 20 yrs and, as far as I can remember, hyave never been late with a payment. The Dems also ok’d the cards raising the apercentage of balance you pay every month, so you can “pay it off sooner” (If I could I would!!) I cant pay it off and I have 10s of 1000s of $$ of medical bills on the card I havent closed.

Note to Dems—if you dont have the cajones to REALLY regulate, just leave it alone, you make things worse. The banks know that they can always take it out on the former middle class and, that you will do nothing to stop them.

Where does the two-third of GDP growth by the
financial sector comes up? I’d really like the source
for this.

It should be a wake-up call. Finance does serve a
legitimate service, but all the inventions they
cooked up beyond simple investment in the past
decades is bullshit. Finance is about moving money
from people who need it saved to others who need it
to create wealth. Period. It’s all that
straightforward, but the basic principle is all
there. It is an abomination that finance has grown so
large an industry. The bankers need to be put back in
their rightful place.

I cannot help but think of the way ancient Rome kept people busy and distracted watching sports and other entertainment. Often, when I want to watch news, I can find nothing but sports or local scandals from somewhere or the doings of celebrities.
More to the point, it seems that some people resent corporate welfare, but if government would crackdown on it, the same group would mostly cry, “Socialism.” Maybe US citizens would be less confused if they had good educations (but that will not happen in my small town).
Moreover, my dad (our local celebrity) and I believe that working class citizens protect capitalism because, “They too may become little capitalists.” Yes, they will make it big despite the fact that they are goofy and their educations consist of little more that sucking—up and worshiping the wealthy.
Like the kid (dad’s friend) who saw the wrestlers (good guy and bad guy) playing cards, someday the people will catch on to the fact that lobbyists work both sides of the isle in government.

Creepedout and elisalouisa among others make a point which shows up big time in a small mining town. Local school teachers now get their jobs by sucking-up at church. They keep their jobs by treating the kids of deputy sheriffs and others like royalty. No teaching degree?—no problem. Goofy locals can just hang out and get paid as teachers’ aids.
I really noticed the change when Ray-Gun and his accomplices were in charge. Young people thought they would become millionaires because, “This is America.”

After a long hard study at the local community college, I did some teaching. At first I did not know why the kids called me “the teacher with stones”. However, I found out soon enough when a bunch of deputies started to harass me. I guess teachers are not supposed to ask one of their kids to sit elsewhere and stop disrupting class.

Later, I saw most of the privileged kids working at fast food, after they flunked out at college.

This is the brainwashed and ignorant generation. “fer sure fer sher who has some meth”?

“The hoax is this: If a certain percentage of people
who access the medical

system die as a result of bad medicine, why don’t we
greatly increase the

number of people who can access it, by making
insurance cheap and accessible,

thus increasing the number of people who will ____. “

(Fill in the word: is it “live” or is it “die”.

Here are a few examples of with or without to help
fill in the blank.

First case is obesity induced diabetes which occurs
when a normal pancreas

can function properly in a 150 lb person, but fails
when he or she hits 300 lbs.

From Democracy Now,Oct.21,09:
Study: Uninsured More Likely to Have Undiagnosed
Conditions

“In healthcare news, a new study has found that the
uninsured are far more likely to have undiagnosed and
under-treated medical conditions than those with
coverage. Harvard University researchers found that
half of uninsured people with diabetes were unaware
of it, compared to just one-quarter of insured people
who also didn’t know they had diabetes. “

That’s 50% without, & 25% with ins.

Now here is where the tragic hoax comes in. The MIPIC
protocol is to

treat the diabetes until the patient dies, rather
than treat the obesity.

So there is a good chance these diabetics will lose
their vision & or

their limbs, The enslavement by the MEDICAL INSURANCE
PHARMACEUTICAL

INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX is a terrible predicament to be
in.

All xrays are damaging to the body & the effects are
cumulative, like too

much sun causing skin cancer. Mammograms are a giant
MIPIC money

maker. It turns out, no surprise, that those women
have a greater risk of

developing breast cancer than those who don’t get
these xrays. Also,

the earlier a woman starts mammograms, the chance of
cancer increases.

This self-fulfilling prophesy is even more deadly
with the use of super xrays

promises. Too many women without breast cancer opt to
have both breasts

removed rather than live in fear.

One last hoax that we live in a Democracy & that
politicians are for we the

people:(from Democracy Now , 10-22-09)

“Rep. Grayson Unveils Website for Deaths of Uninsured
Democratic Congress member Alan Grayson of Florida
has established a new website honoring those who’ve
lost their lives because they were uninsured. Grayson
says he founded NamesOfTheDead.com after a recent
Harvard University study found 44,000 people die
every year because they lack health insurance. “

For the benefit of those who may have missed the
original post, please Google:“The American Medical System
Is The Leading Cause Of Death And Injury In The United States”

Your point, along with Misfiteye’s quote of Upton Sinclair (“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”) make perfect sense. The media knew George Bush’s candidacy was a hoax, but their salaries depended on believing whatever nonsense Rove generated and then foisting that nonsense on the American public.

prgill I agree with your point that PBS and NPR do better jobs than the for-profit media and they need more funding. As for knowing it was a hoax, I certainly did. Have you ever seen 12 Monkeys? “It’s a hoax. The kid’s in the barn.” I’d be willing to bet the child’s father watched 12 Monkeys in the last year. He just didn’t have a barn, so an attic would do.

Say what you want, the duck-taped flying saucer is a great metaphor for a lot that goes on today. Wall Street, for instance: Inflated financing that collapses with nothing inside. Hopes for victory in Afghanistan: Floats for a while, but the sorry end is inevitable, and in the case of Iraq and Af/Pak, lots of dead people. Media World? Blown full of hot air, released, floats for a while until revealed as empty of content. Fast food? Full for an hour or so, then empty. Sex? Well, I’ll leave that one up to you.